Noel

PS: 084 and 218 above are painted in two quite different shades of orange/tan.

This was the fab photo from page 47 of 'Rails Though The West' that alerted me to these two axle timber wagons. A long rake of these might look better than fewer long 62ft wagons overhanging typical layout curves. They don't look too difficult to scratch build in plastic, and might fit on top of a Dapol RTR chassis body which costs €7ea inc wheels and couplings. Will investigate same over the next few months. They look fab running in railers youtube clip. Thanks to JB for photo permission - (C) Jonathan Beaumont and Barry Carse Interesting Youtube clip below of 2 axle timber wagons posted earlier above by @Railer.

One of the things I've learned is that the concentration of pigments in different colours can vary dramatically. When mixing colours always start with the lighter colour and progressively add very small amounts of the darker colour until it looks right by eye, not by volume of mix. This is particularly true of Vallejo paints, Tamiya less so. As you say the 'beholder' and lighting conditions can also be a big factor. I've started using sheets of plasticard primed with the same colour primer I intend to use on models so when a test sample of a paint mix is applied over the primer one will see how it really looks (when dry). Hair dryer can be used on such test samples to accelerate drying.

Oh no - surely it's not going to become a greenway?

Thank you again @jhb171achill for this fabulous encyclopaedia on stock during an era when real trains ran in Ireland. Re-read it last night, its is pure archive gold. Travelling recently on a plastic yo-yo through stations that no longer even have loops nor points reminded me how boring trains now are to look at, to travel on, to look out of the window from, boring stations devoid of activity, no freight, no shunting, no runarounds, no variety, just luas'y look-a-likes. I found re-reading 'Rails Through The West' a most pleasant antidote and tonic for nostalgia, and of course this hobby allows us all to relive whatever era we like old or new. I was chatting to a lady on board who also remembered regularly getting the Galway train years ago from Amiens street, and being told by the conductor to sit in the front coaches of the train because it would be splitting at Mullingar with the rear coaches going on to sligo. Galway station's once vast goods yard now only has two sidings for stabling yo-yos. Pages 46 and 47 of RTTW were pleasant reminders of what once was and what sort of scenes could still be modelled. Your post at the head of this thread may even be worthy of a possible sticky. PS: Did you receive my PM yesterday?

Thanks for posting Railer. That's brilliant. 24 timber wagons in that clip. Before yesterday I never knew these wagons existed. Short wagons like those would look great on layout curves and snaking over point work.

Very nice.

Thanks guys, thats really helpful. Those prototype links posted by @Irishswissernie look great candidates for a model. Any ideas of the origin of the prototypes, length, etc? They almost look like converted 20ft or 22ft container flat wagons???

Thanks as confirmed by Fran, but any idea about the photo on page 47 of 'Rails Through the West'? The photo caption reads ". . . heads a train of 23 four-wheeled timber trucks . . ."

Thank BK. Any idea about the timber wagons on page 47 of JB & BC's book? They seem longer that 20ft but a lot shorter than 62ft.

Did many 4 wheel timber wagons run in Ireland? If anybody had links to photos I would be grateful. Below is a link to a googled photo that may have been Irish but I'm not so sure. Any info would be welcome. Page 47 of "Rails Through The West" depicts a train of 4 wheel timber wagons departing Galway behind 084 in 1999. They might make an interesting model due to their shorter length, looking more realistic on typical layout radius curves than 62ft bogie wagons. Photo (C) Marra Man (picasso site) http://picssr.com/tags/timberwagon/page3

Le Sublime. How will you bear to part with this amazing labour of love when it's complete. Is that a retracted scoop under the chassis?

DCC controlled onboard conductor - this is insanely cool but rather nutty

Ah thanks Patrick. That's makes sense. I was getting seriously confused.

I suspect this was for another thread @Georgeconna

Mixed reports. One report from Kieran (Kirley late of the us parish) was that the MM supplied plain washer did not work on two of his coaches but did work on one. I fitted similar sized plastic shims on my set but they had no effect on the horrific wobble. At the SDMRC show last October Paddy demonstrated a fix using 'sprung' washers on a set of RPSI coaches which seemed to work well, but apparently these since turned into plain washers without the sprung wings, and are available FOC to RPSI customers from Marks Models in Hawkins street. @Dhu Varren posted a DIY fix that worked for him involving gluing on pieces of plastic to the underside of the coach floor that restricted bogie movement in one plane. Personally I am a little miffed that coaches this expensive with such a serious running defect require customers to self fix. Like you am an interested in some more to make up a rake but decided not to buy a) because RPSI may produce another set of 3 standard coaches next year and b) the wobble. Because these coaches were a fund raiser for RPSI, I'm less inclined to pursue them for a remedy and PM was only kindly helping them in the back ground. These things happen. They are still lovely looking coaches if not runable without averting ones eyes.

Hi Ernie. Like the look of that. I too like long trains, but just wondering if long model trains with 20 two axle wagons might restrict the trackwork space available for interesting shunting operations. 12-15 wagons may more easily fit when shunted into sidings, yet look realistically long enough and snake across point work when shunting. Just another thought about wagon weights, you may need two locos double headed to manage 20+ wagons depending on the weight. I have arranged my IRM cement wagons into two trains, one uniform with 15 wagons and another mixed traffic with other wagons. Anyway looking forward to watching your layout evolve. As a matter of interest what material is the baseboard? Noel

Fabulous set of photos. Almost feel I was there.

No

Thanks but Paywall

Just heard its rather cold on board - there's no heating. Boiler issue on 3173 apparently. Unfortunately I couldn't make this interesting trip.

Nice photos as ever. Water level on Lough Derg looks about 300mm lower than normal for this time of year. They must have been dumping water in expectation of flooding. Some great shots of mk4 sets.

I've been studying some photos and have decided to try the CIE Black'n'Tan era version. I will be making some small modifications which is half the fun. I'll be blanking out the doors where the automatic collection and drop off gear was removed about 1962, and a few other details. I love that these coaches actually had a letter box slot on each side. Might try and mimic the inside of the windows where they had a horizontal timber baton half way down the inside of the big windows with hooks for small sacks to be attached to. Lights might be another option. Photo below (C) Paul Haywood's flickr

Cheers. Yes agree, a rake of six bogie Fertiliser and/or eight Tara wagons are ideal model train lengths if one has the space.

Eerie - As you posted this I was actually in the middle of watching that very film Classic stuff